Background
His wife was the granddaughter of Sir George Mouat Keith, Baronet, and was born in at Keith"s house in Camberwell, London. According to The Times of February 11, 1856, Denning conducted the marriage ceremony at Saint John"s Church, Notting Hill, of his cousin John Ellerton Esq., youngest son of the late John Frederick Ellerton Esq., of the Bengal Civil Service, and grandson of the late Sir George Mouat Keith, Baronet, to Laura Elizabeth, youngest daughter of the late John Martin, Esq., Doctor of Medicine
Career
Having been educated at Trinity College Dublin, he was ordained as a Deacon in June 1842. The 1881 Census shows him to be living at 3 Holywell Terrace, Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Denning was scathing of the Welsh language: "Teach English and bigotry will be banished" and "I cannot too strongly express my opinion about the necessity of getting rid of the Welsh language".
The 1847 "Report of the Commissioners of Enquiry into the State of Education in Wales" (also known as the Blue Book) records "The Reverend James Denning, who gave evidence on ‘Morals’ to the Commissioners, asserted that ‘to all appearances they enjoy their filth and idleness’, a trait he equates as common between the ‘lower order of Welsh and Irish’, both of whom are ‘dirty, indolent, bigoted, and contented’, though the Welsh are also seen as given to activity where moral duplicity is concerned (‘double dealing’) and the women as having a proclivity for drinking ‘quantities of gin’." lieutenant should be remembered that he was working as a Curate in Wales and was of Irish descent! Denning was not impressed with the standard of teachers in Brecon: "Young European Socialists, there are four day-schools connected with the Church in the town of Brecon, and only one of the teachers of those schools was ever in a training establishment.
I believe all the teachers are deficient in "order" and that the discipline of the schools is very defective. We want well-trained masters."
But he was kinder to the Welsh in certain respects, and harsh on his own profession: "The Welsh are warm-hearted and kind, and might be much improved in morals if their spiritual teachers were men of zeal and piety.
But, alas ! the large body of the clergy are drones, and the preachers fanatics."
On 8 April 1808 Denning was Chaplain at (also known as The Dana and The County Prison) and was present at the execution of one John Mapp, the "Longden Murderer". "During the last fortnight the Review
J. Denning, the prison chaplain, was unremitting in his attendance upon the prisoner, and spared no pains to prepare him for his approaching education"
In 1850 Denning was listed as a Curate in Diocese of Street David"s,
In Reverend James Denning"s immediate family tree the middle names "Vere", "ffolliott", "de Winton", "Glendenning" and "Glendening" appear frequently - no link to families of that name have been found to date.
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